Dumbo (2019)

Title:  Dumbo

Year: 2019

Genre: Family | Fantasy |

Runtime: 112 min

Director:  Tim Burton

Starring: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito

7,1/10

A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.

BURTON GOES INTO SAFE-ZONE

Accordingly, these live-action movies where it’s reimagined to a certain degree of  innovation and definition of narrative structure. It’s like Disney tries to redeem themself from the past. Gain a different point of view but at the same time earn money, for their high scale of production value.

Although, the story of Dumbo is cheerful but has ensemble that feels rather lost in their own belief of resemble the what they want to tell. It’s imaginary world but its Burton version to all of it. This movie has Burton signature all over the place; Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and Eva Green in the Among the main cast. Eva Green is the best on of these actors, party from the second act. As Colette, She is charmy and believable in her performance. The named gentlemen doesn’t make that impression throughout the whole movie since they’re rather flat.

The origin of how Dumbo managers to fly was, according to the movie, through a feather and self-belief. It’s not entirely clearly how ge came to be or how the magic occured. It has some of the darker tone and a much grittier look to the contrast of the character. A reflection of each of these actors as well. As the beginning of the movie, there’s a lot of exposition and telling of every characters backstory. Perhaps a little to much, for my taste. It wasn’t for the purpose for the story itself, it’s for the audience. It’s distracting and misleading.

More misleading is it to be reconcile and told that every scene is based from CGI. Even the exterior-scenes interferes on how to create a realistic environment where every character has a sole purpose as they are interacting to each other. CGI has for almost two decades been a standard in film production to create a computer-generated environment. The efficiency of practical effect is erased and seen underrated as it appears to be the opposite with CGI technology. The legacy of Tim Burton has decreased in quality of his movie. Batman (1989) and the sequel, wasn’t the perfect movies but it showed character  and commitment to tell a story with a power full message.

That lacks momentarily in Dumbo as the film takes the safe road and lands with a mediocre plot and storyline. Despite that with a risk free plot, Burtons vision is probably the best one to a send to theaters. Therefore, it deserves a fair amount of praise than what it has got. The world shaping is remarkable to the extent to what the essence Disney wants and Eva Green makes one of her best roles om her career. Her character feel redundant.

Michael Keaton, Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito tries their best but Keaton is one of the worst villain written för this movie. His motivation is quite vague just as his devious determination. As it’s a Disney movie we’re aware of the happy ending with the smiling children staring at you, it marks a darker vision from the original tale that me among many adults could appreciate.